Cultivating Nutritious Food Systems

Cultivating Nutritious Food Systems: A dialog with U.S. leaders
7 November, U.S. experts from government, civil society and the private sector discussed the obstacles and opportunities to keeping agriculture and nutrition at the top of the United States foreign assistance agenda, streamed live from the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

With increasing demand for foreign aid, it is more important than ever to focus on the impact of investments linking agriculture and nutrition. GAIN held a high-level dialogue to reflect on and forecast the country’s continued commitment to a nutritious global food system.

The panel was moderated by award-winning journalist and contributing writer to National Geographic, Joel Bourne. The panelists are:

It’s estimated that by 2050, the world’s population could reach 1 billion. We all need nutritious diets in order to live healthy and productive lives. Despite the intrinsic relationship between the food we grow and the food we eat, the agriculture and nutrition sectors are just now beginning to move closer together. The high rates of malnutrition among farming communities are a stark reminder that the link between agriculture and nutrition is broken.

As Marc Van Ameringen, GAIN’s Executive Director, says in the report: “Our stories [in the report] reflect the agricultural value chain itself—from seeds and soil through to harvest and post-harvest, and culminating in the moment that food reaches the consumer’s mouth. We meet farmers and researchers struggling to give weight to the under-invested vegetable. We go inside the laboratories, classrooms and factories where others are directing their efforts toward stemming the overwhelming tide of fruit and vegetable waste. We learn from creative entrepreneurs who are generating markets for nutritious foods. And, finally, we explore some of the innovative financial mechanisms serving as workarounds to business as usual lending—in the form of support for the “missing middle”— those nutritious-food enterprises that are too small for commercial loans yet too large for traditional micro finance schemes.”